Gunning Down Faith
by rokubi-raijuu
Summary: Post-S8. After the fall of angels, what are Dean and Sam going to do now that closing the gates of Hell isn't an option anymore? And maybe most importantly, where is Castiel?
1. Chapter 1

**disclaimer: spn fic inspired by a gifset i saw on tumblr. xD i can't show you the gifset yet cause that would give away the plot ;D**

**but yeah - (i'll try and actually keep this one going omg my life)**

**i claim no ownership of characters, etc etc. r&r if you are feeling kind. c: it helps keep me motivated if i know people are reading it. xD**

* * *

For many years afterward, Dean Winchester would say it was like the best and worst meteor shower he'd ever seen in his life. Worst, because obviously they'd fucked up (again), and not only were the gates of Hell _not_ closed, but Sam had come within an inch of dying, Castiel was who-knew-where, and for some reason, the angels had fallen from heaven, though for once Dean couldn't be sure that had anything to do with him. And it was the best meteor shower he'd ever seen because if there was anything that could outmatch the brilliance of an actual one, it was the sight of hundreds of flaming angels hurtling down from a night sky, lighting up the navy canopy like searchlights. And then Sam would promptly give him that look where he pursed his lips a little, frowned, and shuffled disapprovingly and Dean knew that he'd probably been a little insensitive.

Tight fingers gripped the wheel, both hands squeezing the life out of the poor leather like he only did when he really needed to go fast, a subconscious comfort even though he logically knew it would do nothing to make the Impala burn rubber any quicker. Dean cast a quick glance at his brother slumped in the seat next to him. "Sammy, you gonna be okay?" His voice was gruff, thick with poorly concealed concern.

"Yeah," came the raspy reply. "Just keep driving."

But he sounded like shit and Dean knew it, though he said nothing, just kept a stony gaze forward on the road barely illuminated by the beam of his headlights and tried to will Baby to move faster. Surprisingly, it was Sam who kept talking after a while. "You know… the hospital's not going to know what's wrong with me."

"Yeah, well they've got stuff to patch you up with, at least. We'll get you there and c – shit!" Practiced reflexes saved the bundle in the middle of the road from being hit as Dean swerved hard, tires screeching against concrete before they bumped to a stop. "… You okay?"

"What _was_ that?"

"Hell if I know. Stay in the car."

Thankfully, for once Sam didn't protest, just groaned softly and shifted slightly against the leather while Dean climbed out the driver's door and closed it behind him, one hand on a gun hooked on his jeans as he slowly advanced towards the shape. Only when he drew closer did he realize it was steaming, whatever it was, wisps of smoke rising from it, and was motionless as a lump of coal. Then the moon outlined the folded edges of feathers in pale light, and Dean realized half the size of the lump was a wing, pale brown in color and partly draped over the humanoid shape. An angel. Swallowing thickly, Dean took his hands off the butt of his gun. Was it even alive, after a fall like that?

Suddenly, a brilliant glow kindled at the edges of the wings, glimmering at the tips, and Dean could swear they were shrinking. No, not shrinking… they were dissolving, the tips of feathers rapidly being eaten away by the bright rot, and the body came to life, twisting onto its back and letting out a long groan of pain. Before Dean's eyes, the light advanced farther, accelerating as it spread over the now stunted limbs, and that was when the delirious moans turned to shallow, tight gasps and then soft, sobbing screams. "Hey, hey!" Regaining his senses, Dean rushed forward, but as soon as he laid hands on the angel he recoiled with a hiss of pain, looking down at a brand of red across his palm. Great. Right, it was still red hot. "What's going on?"

The weakened angel turned over, agony etched into the lines of her face, a freckled, pale face fringed with tangled blond hair. Her wings were almost entirely gone now; just the stumps remained, rapidly devoured by the light and leaving nothing but stray feathers in its wake, drifting in sad patterns to settle on the pavement like snowfall, remnants of Grace and Heaven. Dean's eye caught one of the feathers and he bit his lip, turning back to the half-conscious angel. "Hey," he tried again, resisting the urge to reach out and try to shake her a little. "You okay? You alive?"

He didn't really expect a response, but one came. The angel opened her eyes, a blue of receding brilliance, and Dean had to remind himself that this wasn't Castiel. This was an angel he'd never met before, and he didn't know whether she was hostile or as dickish as the rest of them, though he comforted himself with the thought that even if she was, she wasn't really in a place to be hurting him. Hopefully. "… Winchester. You are… Dean Winchester. What… happened? Why am I – " Her face noticeably fell, and there was such baffled grief there that even Dean felt bad, even though he had no idea what happened. "… C-Cast out?" Her frail body gave a suffering shudder, as though just the thought gave her unbearable pain.

"Can't say I know what's going on either. Angels fell, everywhere. What the hell happened upstairs?"

The angel looked straight at him, as if realizing he was there for the first time. But instead of answering, she merely continued. "… You tried to close the gates of Hell."

Dean gritted his teeth, his mind going to Sammy in the car, broken and battered, needing medical attention or _some_ kind of attention, waiting for him. He couldn't take long. "Yeah, didn't really work."

Here the angel seemed surprised, if the slight widening of her red-rimmed eyes could have been interpreted as surprise and not just another reaction to pain. "Didn't… work?" But then, in a bright burst of the light that had been eating at her wings, suddenly they were gone, and the angel let out an ear-splitting shriek, writhing against the cracked concrete, curling in on herself, and Dean got the feeling that whatever was going on, he couldn't just wait around here. "You've gotta be kidding me."

"Why…" she croaked, her voice sounding leagues away. "Why… my grace… why is it gone? Who took my grace?"

Dean, halfway to standing, paused at that, confused. "Your – your grace? Are you not an angel anymore? … Shit, your wings, they were – "

"Gone." Her voice cracked, and under the lonely moonlight she looked incredibly small now without them shrouding her body. "Human. I'm… I'm human now. Why is this happening?"

Unable to answer, Dean hesitated, grinding his teeth. Fuck, he couldn't just leave this angel – human? – lying here, waiting to be hit by a car. _Fuck!_ Stooping down again, he tentatively brushed his fingers against her shoulder. Still hot, but not burning. "Okay, let's get you to the hospital too." _Shit, they're not gonna know what the hell to do with her either. _But he didn't know what else to do, and leaving her for road kill, now that apparently she actually _could_ be killed by a car, didn't sit right with him. Sliding his arms under her shoulders and the bend of her knees, he hefted her up – alarmingly light – and started back for the car. Only then did he realize that she had fallen unconscious.

"… An angel?"

Dean had gone back to focusing on the road ahead of him, now wary for more angels to almost run over, but so far the road was clear and he found himself wondering where they had all fallen and where Castiel was. Had he taken a nosedive from Heaven too? Did that mean he had turned human too? The angel in the backseat looked in bad shape, and Dean wasn't really sure what turning human did to one of them. He remembered Anna – one of the many brief flashes of faces and names that they had seen and known, and had gone from their lives way too soon – and she had been fine after her grace had been taken, right? But she'd lost her memory, and evidently these guys still knew what was going on. Castiel had to be somewhere out there.

"Dean?"

Blinking, he looked over to Sam. "What? Oh, yeah. Turned human, I think. Saw her wings poof, and then she mumbled something about her Grace being gone."

"You think they get their angelic powers taken away when they fall? Become vulnerable?"

"I don't know. All I know is she looks like she got hit by an eighteen wheeler and she can die now, so we should keep that from happening. Then we can figure out what to do."

There was a moment's pause, and then Sam's voice was much quieter. "Well, we can't close Hell anymore."

"Right about that." He could feel Sam looking at him, but he wasn't going to look back, because their conversation in that worn out church still had its fingers wrapped tight around his chest and just remembering how his own brother had looked at him with genuine confusion and asked "so?" when he'd said he was going to die if he kept going made him feel sour and bitter inside all at once. Sam sounded like he was about to say something again, but at that moment there was a shuffling noise from the backseat, and both of them turned their heads to look at the shadow of motion.

"That you, angel?" Dean called, turning back forward to keep his eyes on the road. Sam frowned and eased himself up until he could sit up a little straighter, painstakingly dragging himself inch by inch until he was turned so he could see the angel's face as she opened her eyes.

"My name is Raziel," she replied, her voice almost too soft to hear over the growling hum of the engine. The occasional passing streetlamp illuminated a sickly face, pale skin drawn almost unnaturally taut over the bones of her structure. She looked like a victim of anorexia, and the sunken shadows around her eyes gave her a haunted, ghost-like appearance. Sam swiveled back around briefly to give Dean a silent, downcast look that his brother recognized well. On hunts, they had developed a silent way of communicating 'I don't think they're gonna make it' when they didn't want to worry victims. He just set his jaw and put the pedal harder to the metal. "You must… not have found the correct angel. They are difficult to locate in recent times; much of Heaven has become… jaded."

Sam furrowed his brow slightly. "What? The correct angel for… what, exactly?"

Now it was Raziel's turn to look a little baffled, though her confusion was painfully innocent, a pure sort of lack of understanding that no human could ever produce, child-like in its naiveté. "Were you not talking of closing the gates of Hell?"

"Uh… yeah," Sam replied, ignoring Dean's obvious tension about the very subject. "And I'm pretty sure there wasn't anything about angels in that. Hellhounds, delivered souls, and curing demons, yeah. No angels."

"… Ah, the back path." Raziel relaxed noticeably. "How valiant of you, Sam Winchester… willing to give yourself to rid the earth of Crowley and his ilk."

"Doesn't matter," Dean snapped before either of them could say anything more. "Sam's not doing any of that anymore; neither of us are. Demons can have this stinking place for a while longer; Hell's staying open if it means my brother's got two feet planted firmly here, you got that?"

"Dean, wait." Sam leaned forward a little in his chair, frowning when Raziel closed her eyes and leaned back against the upholstery. "Hey, Raziel. You said this was a back path? You mean there's another way?"

For a few seconds, she was so quiet that Sam wondered if maybe she'd died, but then she let out a sigh. "You mean… you don't know? Didn't your prophet translate the tablet?"

"Uh, working on it. What's the other way?"

"Forget it, Sam. I'm not letting you anywhere near any more trials – "

"It's difficult… especially in these times." Raziel kept talking, but her voice grew quieter and quieter, and Sam swore she was getting worse. It had only been a few minutes, but now the passing bands of light shone over a bony face, skin stretched almost like parchment, barely covering what was underneath. Even her closed eyelids were thin, like he could see right through them if he looked close enough. "Sacrifice. You have to find an angel. One who still believes in the original ways of Heaven. A pure angel."

"The original ways of Heaven?" Sam knew he had to be economic with the information he asked for now; Raziel wasn't going to hold out for much longer. The hospital trip was going to be pointless for her. "… Raziel?"

Another long breath left her thinned and parched lips. "When our father… first created us. We were… made to be shepherds, Sam… to guide you… humans. Show you the right path. After… Lucifer fell, after so… so many ages, most of us have lost that. Many in Heaven do – or, did… I suppose – what they chose. There was war… chaos… where has our faith in the father gone, in his mission? Now… we all fight, and humans… your kind… they are simply cattle. Collateral damage. Angels… very few… care about humans anymore."

Sam swallowed, a thick motion that stuck in his dry throat and made him wince. They'd had a few too many run-ins in the past with angels who gave a rat's ass about people. "Raziel, do you know any angels who still… believe?"

"Give it up. We're not doing this again."

"But it's another way, Dean! We can still shut down Hell, for good. Why not?"

"Damn it, Sam, we already talked about this. I'm not letting you die, okay? Didn't you hear all that stuff I said to you back there?"

"Look." Shifting in his seat again, Sam sucked in a breath as the essence of the trials still burned inside him, like trapping a hurricane inside a worn leather sack. "She never said it would kill me. We can at least think about it." Dean looked unconvinced. "And if it does anything to me, _anything_… we call it quits, okay?"

Bright green eyes illuminated by the fluorescent light of another passing streetlamp revealed the fear that bubbled just beneath as Dean glanced at his brother. He wanted so badly to say no, refuse to even think about this; just seeing Sam like he was now… "You sure about this?"

"Promise. You with me?"

_"You can barely do it with me. I mean, you think I screw up everything I try. You think I need a chaperone, remember?"_

Dean shifted his jaw, turning his face back forward. "… Soon as it goes south, no operation, got it?"

Instead of answering, Sam just looked back to the still form of Raziel in the backseat. "Raziel? Any angels you know who still follow the original mission?"

But they were met with silence. The combination of shock from the unexpected fall, having her grace ripped from her, and waking up human had proved too much. The angel was dead.


	2. Chapter 2

**aaand chapter 2 is up c: r&r if you're feeling generoussss ~ 3 thanks for all the followers so far!**

* * *

"No! Not Cas, man. Forget it."

The bolted door to the bunker shut with a reverberating clang, the rattle of plastic bags accompanying voices as they crossed over into the library. "Just hear me out." Sam strode alongside an adamant Dean. "I'm not saying we have to do anything, just find him. I mean, you want to find him too, right?"

"Not to kill him. Seriously? How is that even a suggestion?" Setting his two grocery bags on the polished table, Dean fished out the six-pack of beer, turning his head to shout in the direction of the next room. "Hey, prophet boy! Lunch time!"

Unwrapping his sandwich from the plastic, Sam glanced down at the bottle in Dean's hand and frowned momentarily, though he said nothing about his brother's eating habits. "We've been waiting around long enough, Dean. And yeah, it was because I was getting better, I get that. But we have to do something, before something else happens."

And neither of them asked what that something else could be because at this point, bad luck more or less followed them around like hounds and anything was possible. Crowley had probably gotten free, and neither Dean nor Sam was sure what his state was. They'd left him a hair from being completely purified, but hadn't gone back to check on him afterwards. Would he be changed completely, or not at all? That was something else to consider, another problem out of seemingly dozens they always had to contend with.

The sound of footsteps signaled Kevin's emergence from his workspace, looking just like he had in the days before he'd finished translating the trials. He was a sorry sight, bedraggled and like he hadn't showered since Castiel'd told him to translate the angel tablet, which might have actually been the case. The dark bags under his red-rimmed eyes had returned and he looked pale and sallow, ten years past his age. "Got you a sandwich and some fruit," Dean tossed a bag to him by way of apology, and Kevin muttered a soft 'thanks' before sinking into one of the plush chairs.

"Find anything?" Sam asked, gulping down half his bottle of water.

Kevin cleared his throat. "Something, I guess. I haven't gotten to the part about sacrificing a pure angel, but it's mentioned, so I don't think Raziel was lying."

"Awesome work, kid. Keep it up." But Dean couldn't help but still have his misgivings about this entire ordeal. He'd agreed to let Sam try again, but a big part of him was reluctant. Shit like this didn't ever get by with a free pass – there was always a catch, something they needed to give up. It had almost been Sam's life last time, and he didn't want to think about what this one wanted. On the other hand, he also knew how much this meant to his brother; half of Sam's enthusiasm wasn't even about closing the gates of Hell, he knew; it was about proving himself. Proving that even after listening to Ruby, freeing Lucifer, leaving Dean behind in Purgatory, giving into the addiction to demon blood, he could do something right.

"Which means we only have one option, which is looking for an angel who fits the bill," Sam argued, turning back to Dean. "Think about it. How many angels do we know who still follow Heaven's original rules? Hell, how many angels do we even _know?"_ At least, ones that were still alive. But that wasn't their fault. Seeing Dean's frown, Sam continued. "I'm not suggesting we go at Cas with guns blazing, okay? He's my friend too, Dean."

"We don't even know where the damn guy is!" Dean set the bottle down on the counter and frustratedly rummaged in the bag for his burger, though even the thought of its bacon slathered greasy goodness wasn't really enough to lift his spirits. "How do we even find him?"

"Um, guys?" Kevin's voice drew the brothers' attention. "Ever thought about how the angels aren't even angels anymore? I mean, from what you've been saying, they're all human now, right? I don't know if sacrificing them would even work."

"Which is why you've gotta set to work translating that son of a bitch," Dean fired back with a smile, which quickly faded at Kevin's deadpan face, and he cleared his throat, biting into his burger.

"He has a point," Sam sighed, "but we can't just wait around for him to finish translating. We don't know how long that's going to take. No offense or anything, Kevin, but - " He paused when the boy waved him off dismissively, and turned back to Dean. "We're going to have to figure it out another way. Find another angel, or something. They fell all over, right? And from what Raziel sounded like, the whole other way to close the gates was pretty common knowledge. They'd know about it. And we might as well chase it straight to the source."

Dean lifted his head from his burger, still chewing as he looked at Sam questioningly. "Meaning?" he mumbled through a mouthful of food.

"Meaning we look for Cas."

If there was one thing Dean hated, it was when what was the most sensible thing to do was also his least favorite course of action. It didn't feel _right_ to him, going hunting for Cas only to ask him if it was okay if they sacrificed him to close Hell. If his witness to the brief, weird, conversation between Cas and Naomi had been anything to go by, the guy had enough of his own problems to deal with. He wanted to look for him, sure, but just to make sure he was okay and wasn't dead like the other angels. The thought that he might be gone for good – no, he wasn't going to think about it. Cas had to be out there.

"He's the only one that fits, Dean." Sam leaned forward in his chair, sandwich in one hand and elbows propped on his thighs. "He was always talking about how he wanted to make Heaven the way it was, wanted to follow the old ways of God. That's the whole reason he even rebelled, remember?"

"Damn it, Sam, stop talking like we're already planning to off him, okay? He's one of us. He _helped_ us. We're not mentioning this whole sacrificing thing to him until we've made sure he's okay."

"No, yeah, of course," Sam lifted his hands, settling back against his chair. "I'm with you on that. Look, if he doesn't want anything to do with it, fine. We'll find something else. We always do, right? Maybe he'll know another angel we can use."

It still didn't sit well with Dean. He wasn't entirely sure why – he'd never had a problem with ganking angels before when he'd needed to. Zachariah, for example. But he'd been an asshole. Most of them were. But these angels who'd fallen… they'd turned human, all of them. And he couldn't get the look in Raziel's eyes out of his head completely yet, the fear when she'd looked around and asked him why she'd been cast out. God, it was like murdering a kid. Maybe that was the problem. They were too vulnerable now. He grabbed his beer again. "Yeah," he mumbled after taking a gulp, closing his eyes. "Okay, we'll look for Cas."

* * *

The few wandering travelers who had stopped at the gas station to fill up their cars didn't pay any mind to the man turning into the station from the street, seemingly unfazed from having walked however far he had gone on foot, though the weathered exhaustion in his eyes spoke volumes of weariness, the slight drag in his step betraying a tiredness he wasn't familiar with. The tattered ends of his dirty trench coat were splattered with mud, the fabric wrinkled from rain, threads coming apart in some places. Bright blue eyes had dimmed, narrowed against a glare of the sun he hadn't ever noticed before that blinded him, dark hair matted with dirt.

As he dragged himself toward the small station convenience store, a woman at the pump nearest him glanced at the ragged stranger from the corner of her eye and shuffled away warily, though this act of suspicion went unnoticed by its recipient.

The last few days had treated Castiel badly. After Metatron had stolen his Grace, he had been thrown back down to earth, and no sooner had he gotten to his feet than had the sky lit up with the fall of his brethren, hundreds of them hurtling down like shooting stars. He'd had yet to find any, but Castiel knew there was little hope for many of them. They would have lost their Grace as well because of Metatron's ploy, and if the impact hadn't killed them, the shock would have soon after. And if they survived that, exposure would rob even Heaven's hardiest angels of their lives if they had the misfortune to land in the vast wilderness. Maybe more than half of them had fallen into the oceans, where they would have perished within mere minutes.

Castiel had been fortunate enough to have been cast to an inhabited section of earth, near a highway. He retained enough of his sparse knowledge of the workings of humans to know how to hitch-hike, and in this sense he counted himself as one of the luckiest, who had had the opportunity to learn about earth before being forced to assimilate.

What he had not been prepared for were the difficulties that arose afterward. Recalling his escape during the Apocalypse, he had sought out a liquor store, but had found that without an identification of some kind, he was unable to purchase any. And without his powers as an angel, he could not simply force his way past the store man as he had last time. During his ventures hitchhiking, he had found a man kind enough to give him a bottle of water, but that had run out long ago and his throat was parched, scratchy with dryness.

A dying bell jingled weakly on his way into the store, prompting the man at the counter to look up from his phone in acknowledgement. Castiel didn't head for the rows stocked with various foods and snacks, though his now-human body was craving some form of nourishment. He knew he had no money to buy any of the items on display, and no way to earn money, for that matter. Hunger and thirst were human aspects of life he, along with weariness, had never had to weather before. And he was quickly nearing his wits' end. Metatron's plan had been an event he had not foreseen, something that had not been within the scope of his realization, and now he berated himself silently for his foolishness.

He approached the man behind the counter with the same stony face that he had always worn, for being of human makeup did not abolish angelic tendencies. "Do you have a phone?" he asked monotonously, his voice raspy with disuse, prompting the man to look up again.

"Yeah, just around the corner there," he instructed, pointing his arm behind him to a general area behind a row of shelves. "You got coins, man?"

"… No."

The man gave him a wincing look of sympathy. "Sorry, then you can't use it."

Castiel stood there for a few halting moments, before his desperation decided that he had no other choice. "Please. It's an emergency."

For a second the man looked as though he was going to dismiss him, but then his jaw tightened and he sighed. "All right, man. Don't go asking for too many favors though," he acquiesced, opening the cash register with a soft _shhhk-ding!_ and fishing out a handful of quarters. Castiel murmured his genuine thanks before turning and walking down the aisle to where the man had pointed him. After slotting the coins into the machine, he dialed a number he had recently committed to memory. Holding the earpiece close, the fallen angel glanced behind and around him once before lowering his voice, so many years of care and caution warding him against any prying ears. "I need help."

A buzzing voice on the other end made him narrow his eyes, just slightly. "Yes. Things have changed. I had not anticipated – "

He paused again, waited as the voice spoke. "No. The plan will still work. I have an idea. I need to find Sam and Dean."

The voice rattled on for a little while. "Yes. And I will also require several bottles of water and a meal. Being human is… more difficult than I realized."

After finishing the call, Castiel gently placed the phone back on the receiver and exited the small store from the back door. Glancing up at another darkening sky, he sat down on an old bench beside the station to wait.


End file.
